Snack and food storage bags and plastic food wrap are not new. Fold-over and easy-seal plastic snack and storage bags come in a variety of sizes, convenient for keeping a sandwich fresh or for holding a bag of chips for lunch. They are easy to work with, can be used to store anything from warm cookies to a bunch of cold grapes, and they are generally reusable (although we typically toss them when we are done with whatever food was inside). Other food storage bags can be vacuum sealed via a special appliance, or simply closed with twist tie
Unfortunately, snack and food storage bags are not that useful when we want to cover a bowl of cut-up fruit or a chunk of cake or the leftovers in a casserole dish. Whether it's because the casserole contains liquid or we just want to keep it in the dish for ease of reheating. Perhaps the dish is simply too clumsy to handle or we are too busy to transfer it out of the dish. Snack and food storage bags, even one-gallon size, do not solve all of our food preservation issues.
Lidded glass and rigid plastic containers are another useful option. They are washable, reusable, and come in a variety of sizes to hold just the right amount of leftovers. However, because there are two matching parts to keep, it can become increasingly difficult if not eventually impossible to find the right lid. Sometimes the lid has permanently gone missing or the drawer where all of the storage containers are kept is a mess of mismatched bottoms and tops. It is difficult to get the right size and shape match. And let alone having limited room to conveniently store all these containers, some people just do not want to have to clean more containers—often choosing to not transfer leftovers to a new container or containers.
Aluminum foil is yet another solution. You can dispense exactly the amount you need, mold it around openings of any shape, and it is recyclable. However, you cannot see through it to know what it covers, not without removing it. Nor does it cling, leaving gaps where air seeps in and the foil slides in place. A casserole dish covered with aluminum foil is likely to allow its aroma to blend and permeate with all the other food in the refrigerator. For these reasons, aluminum foil is generally better for wrapping separate small food items completely, and for use as a tent when reheating a casserole or as a make-shift pan, such as for warming bread in the oven. This leaves plastic food wrap.
Plastic food wrap, sometimes known as cling film, cling wrap, or stretch wrap, is amazingly useful and solves many of these problems. You can pull off the length you want, it clings tightly to glass, glazed ceramic and metal serving dishes of all sizes and shapes. You can see through it. It generally keeps food fresh and odor-free. A roll of plastic food wrap stores easily in a small drawer, and it makes an excellent ad hoc lid for just about any size bowl or dish. The very clinginess that makes plastic wrap ideal for forming an airtight seal on dishware is the same one that makes the wrap cling to itself. It is impossible to separate sheets of cling wrap stuck to itself, and nearly impossible to find the leading edge to pull off a roll. This creates enormous waste. In our experience, it is almost impossible to unroll, cleanly cut, and effortlessly apply a right-sized sheet of plastic food wrap without accidentally twisting it into a self-clinging, tangled ball. What is needed at home, grocery stores and restaurants is an easy and twist-free way to dispense a sheet of cling wrap.